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No it is not stealing - Roy found a completely separate market for the works, acquired his own marketing within the art world, and was successful selling into t
by bsenftner 4y ago
No it is not stealing - Roy found a completely separate market for the works, acquired his own marketing within the art world, and was successful selling into that market. Comic books, as much as I love them and have been a collector for decades, via salaries purchased that art from the comic artists, and it is the failure of the comic publishers to realize or capitalize on their potential art world value. Roy Lichtenstein made that comic art have the art world value via his shows and marketing of his work. If not for Roy, comics and comic art may have have transcended the ghetto it lived and nearly died, if not for VFX.
edit: you down voters are allowing the emotional argument get to you. Think this logically. Realize the time this occurred. And realize the legal positions of a successful fine artist and that of a "scummy comic book publisher" and there is no contest, the fine artist will win every time - in our culture at that time.
- sclarisse 4y agoThis sounds like the rationale for some scammy NFT.
- bsenftner 4y agoCompletely separate markets, and the art was already sold. Look at the situation logically and legally. The comic artists got screwed by the comic book publishers twice: once when they sold their work and a second time by the publishers not pursuing Roy, but chances are Roy had more legal resources than they and that's what stopped them. Realize that before our "modern time" comic book publishers were shoulder to shoulder with pornography as far as the public opinion of them.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bitwize 4y agoThe art world, largely, concerns itself with scammy NFTs, that happen to take the form of physical artifacts.
- schneems 4y agoThe line between stealing and not isn’t defined by talent.
- ghaff 4y agoIn art generally, but maybe pop art in particular, there are a lot of examples of art getting at least very near the line of imitating another artist's style or even specific works. See also the Obama Hope poster. Or Andy Warhol. At the boundaries, it's often going to be a close call.
- clcaev 4y ago> No it is not stealing - Roy found a completely separate market for the works, acquired his own marketing within the art world, and was successful selling into that market Copyright provides exclusive rights to creators for derivative works. Just because that derivative is in a new market does not absolve one of copyright obligations. It seems someone is claiming a kind of fair use? that argument rings hollow, I don't see these paintings as transformative. I wonder if anyone took him or his estate to court for copyright violations.
- iamben 4y agoIsn't this what Richard Prince has been doing for years, though? (And, for right or wrong, winning?)
- lozenge 4y agoAs the article says, there's no copyright issue. These reproductions aren't traced - they're redrawn with a new color scheme and new elements. This is like taking a recipe and writing it in new words and changing some of the ingredient, which makes it not copyright infringement.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoRecipes are not copyrightable, images are. Not the same thing at all.
- mihaic 4y agoIt sounds to me like you heard this bullshit argument from someone before and they managed to convince you. It's almost a trope in the art world, and the fact that many unoriginal artists use it has made it a usable argument by simple repetition. It might not be "stealing", but something ok it also is not.
- bsenftner 4y agoActually, I've worked on 12 separate 7 hour art history documentaries, have a sister that is a professional fine artist, and have a legal interest in these areas via ownership of some nice art.
- talideon 4y agoAnd yet in spite of that, you seem to be ignoring how copyright works.
- nemo44x 4y agoEven if there was a copyright claim (not convinced there was), the owner of the copyright (not the artist as they sold that to the publisher) never took action. Don’t you have to defend your copyrights in order for them to be considered not public domain?
- singpolyma3 4y agoNo. You need to sue in order for anything to happen. Laws do not enforce themselves. But no, you do not need to do anything to be considered "not public domain" but rather the opposite.
- ghaff 4y ago>Don’t you have to defend your copyrights in order for them to be considered not public domain No. That's more a matter of trademark law. In general (IANAL) I assume an artist's estate could decide to start suing people even though the artist didn't. Though there may be some other wrinkles to them actually collecting money.
- LudwigNagasena 4y agoNone of your arguments seem to support your thesis that “it is not stealing”. I personally fail to see any logical connection between them.
- krisoft 4y ago> No it is not stealing Let's assume you are right about everything you are writing. It still does not support the "It is not stealing" narrative. It is supporting the "This is how Roy got away with stealing" narrative.
- gizmo 4y agoHe could have made comic book style art without ripping off the original artists’ work. But he didn’t, because making original art is hard and copying art is easy. Additionally, as the article points out, the original artists were blocked from selling their own art as paintings because the publishers had the copyright and no interest in turning the comic book illustrators (lowly paid commodities) into respected artists.